When I came out of the school building the next afternoon, I so fully expected to see Karissa sitting there again, that I was surprised
that she was not. I was surprised, too, at the relief that I felt. Partly, I think because my feelings were still hurt by how she'd talked
and acted towards me. But, also, I knew that it would be really hard for me to abide by Adam's order. I was afraid
that when I had to make the decision to obey Adam and ignore her, or go against him and talk to her, my better judgement would
be in a battle against my willfulness.
After supper was over, I got my night class stuff together, and went back downstairs with my backpack.
"Is it time?" Adam asked me, coming thru the living room, with a cup of coffee in his hand.
I nodded, and he said, "Okay. I'll run you in."
So Adam drove me to the high school. We didn't talk a whole lot when we were driving. We were listening to the radio, and
after June Carter and Johnny Cash had finished their duet, I spoke up, "Karissa says it wasn't her that talked to
social services about us."
Instead of immediately disagreeing, Adam just said, "Hmm," sort of quietly.
"She says it was probably a neighbor, or somebody."
"It was Karissa, Harlie," he said, firmly.
"How do you know for sure?" I asked.
"Because Brian had a girlfriend at the time whose mother worked at the office. She told us."
"Oh," I said, properly subdued.
We were both quiet for a couple of minutes, and then he said, "I'm sure it's confusing for you, hearing totally different
things. But we wouldn't lie to you."
For the first time, it occurred to me that it must be hurtful to Adam, and Brian, too, that I would even think for a moment to take Karissa's word over theirs. I'd known her for such a short time. And they'd been there, all my life, being truthful with me.
"I know you wouldn't," I said, sorry that I'd brought it up. "I just didn't know that you knew for sure who it was."
He nodded slightly, but was quiet again.
At the high school, we arrived just as Miss Noel was getting out of her car in the parking lot.
I introduced Adam to her, and after a couple of minutes of small talk, he said goodbye, and left.
Since I was early, I helped Miss Noel set things up for class, and then we talked until other people started arriving.
Crane was the one to pick me up after class. He came into the classroom, where I was still talking to Miss Noel, and when I introduced them
to each other, they stood talking to each other. And smiling. Lots of smiling.
The rest of the week passed fairly quietly. School, and then chores. And getting ahead on my homework, since I didn't have much else to occupy my time. And, I had
plenty of time to pore over the photo albums. On Saturday morning, I went for a long horseback ride.
The rest of the morning I spent working on cleaning the tack. When my arm began to ache from it, I went up into the barn loft, laying down in the warm sun, and
looking out the door of the loft, watching the clouds drift by.
The loft was still pretty cluttered from when everything that had been in the attic had been toted out here, so that Brian and Clare could move in up there.
I started looking thru the boxes that were filled with old newspaper clippings, and books. Some of the clippings were of my brothers in their younger years. Brian and Adam in Little League baseball, Evan in a Junior Rodeo competition, complete in mini chaps.
The heavy steamer trunk, stuck into a far corner, caught my interest. It had been years since I'd looked inside of it. I had trouble getting the clasp on the lid to open. I pushed and pulled, breaking two fingernails in the process.
When I heard someone down below, coming into the barn, I leaned over the edge of the ladder, looking down.
"Evan!" I said, and he jumped, startled.
"What! I didn't know you were up there," he said.
"Can you come up here and help me open something?" I asked him.
"I thought you were out here workin' on the tack," he said.
I heaved a huge sigh. "I have been. All morning. I'm just taking a little break. Good grief, Ev!"
"Okay, okay. I just asked. Don't get your bloomers in a bunch."
"Will you come up here? Please?" I asked.
"What for?"
"It will take you two seconds. Do you not have two seconds to spare for your only sister?"
He sighed and climbed the ladder, muttering. "Okay. Two seconds. What is it?"
I pointed at the trunk. "I can't get it open."
Evan walked over to the trunk, and started trying to open it.
"It's stuck," he said, and I rolled my eyes heavenward.
"What was your first clue, Sherlock?" I asked, impatiently.
"Do you want my help or not?" he asked.
"Okay. Sorry."
Evan took his pocketknife out of the front pocket of his jeans, and after twisting the blade into the clasp for a few minutes, he opened it.
"There you go," he said.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." He stood there, watching as I lifted the heavy lid.
"What are you doin'?" he asked.
"Just looking at stuff," I said, as I sank to my knees in front of the trunk.
"Why do you wanna spend your time doin' that?" he asked.
"Because. I like doing it. I want to know things." I said, as I started lifting something that looked like a tablecloth off of the top.
I was so involved in uncovering things that I didn't even notice when Evan had gone back down the ladder.
Underneath the tablecloth, there was a dress. I shook it out, stood up, holding it up against me. It was old-fashioned, but knowing that it had probably been
my mom's made it appealing to me.
There were more pictures mixed into the trunk, some in stacks contained by rubber bands, and some loose. There were some baby items, Adam and Brian's hospital
wristbands from when they were born, and a tiny baby hairbrush. Baby blankets, which I laid aside, thinking that Hannah might like them for Isaac. There were some things of Guthrie and mine, too. A book of nursery rhymes that had words written in the front of it.
"For my precious little ones,
Guthrie James and Harlie Marie,
I wish for hours of reading these
rhymes to you both.
Merry Christmas, 1970
Love, Mama
I leafed thru the familiar rhymes, 'Old Mother Hubbard', and 'Jack Spratt', wondering if she had, in fact, sat for many hours reading to Guthrie and I. I wished that it was possible to
remember things that happened when a person was just a baby, or toddler. I sat the book aside, too, on top of the baby blankets. My mom would like it, I thought, if Adam read to Isaac from it.
Letters, bound by paper clips and rubber bands, which I added to my pile to read later on. At the bottom of the trunk, was a slim book, pale yellow, and really worn looking. I took it out, and opened it, to the inside page, which read, "Kate Newman". The name 'Newman' had been marked out, and 'McFadden' had been written in its' place.
I knew, even without looking any further, that this had been a diary, a journal of my mother's. My heart kind of leaped in excitement. I couldn't believe my luck! To think that I would be able to read my mom's personal thoughts and feelings!
I stuffed the dress and tablecloth back into the trunk and closed the lid, and then picked up my stack of the blankets and nursery rhyme book, the letters, and the yellow journal, and scrambled down the ladder steps, excited beyond belief.
7
Hannah was glad to see the blankets and the nursery rhyme book. She sat down at the kitchen table, carefully unfolding the blankets, and looking at them.
"Oh, these are so special," she said. "They might have been Adam's."
Guthrie, who was sitting there, looking at the nursery book, said, "Yeah. And Brian's. And Crane's. And Daniel's. And-"
"Okay, cowboy," Hannah said, reaching out to give Guthrie's arm a light punch.
"It's cool though," Guthrie said. "Findin' a book that Mom got for me and Har like this."
"That's not all, either," I said, holding up the letters and the yellow book. "I think this is a journal that Mom kept."
"Oh," Hannah said. "If it is, that would be such a precious thing for you to have, Harlie."
"I know," I said, holding the book to my chest reverently.
When everybody started coming inside to eat lunch, I went upstairs to put the letters and journal in my bedroom. I planned to eat a quick, very quick, lunch, and
then take the journal outside somewhere to start reading it.
That's not the way it happened, though. During lunch, and a discussion over what needed to be done that afternoon, I got assigned to go along with Adam and Brian
to fetch and carry while they fixed some fence.
Even though I was super anxious and excited to begin reading the journal, I didn't mind so much going to help them. To me, it's always a winning day to be outside
in the sunshine. I sat between them as we bounced along in the truck to the spot where they were going to repair fence. It was warm enough that the windows were down, and I was glad I'd thought to wear a ball cap to help hold my hair back.
For the first half hour or so, I was busy carrying fence posts, and going back and forth to the truck to get tools for them, or going to fetch the water jug.
I told them both about my discovery of the letters and the journal of our mom. I was so animated that I was chattering pretty much non-stop about
it.
"That's somethin' alright," Adam said, but I thought he sounded sort of reserved, as if he wasn't stating his whole opinion.
"It's amazing, is what it is!" I said, still enthusiastic.
After a few minutes, Adam spoke up again. "You know, sugar, Mom was pretty special."
He said it in an off-hand type of way, and I looked at him, wrinkling my forehead, puzzled. "I know. I can tell that by the way you all talk about her."
Adam and Brian exchanged a look between them, and then Adam said, "Sometimes, when a person writes things down in a journal like that, it covers feelings that
may not be so in keepin' with what their personality seems to be."
He held out his hand for the fence snips I was holding, and I handed them to him. I was still puzzled by what he was getting at.
"What I'm tryin' to say is, Mom was a real person. She had her bad days, too, just like everybody else."
I nodded a little. "I understand that."
"So there might be things written in there that might be surprising to you. That's the point I'm tryin' to make."
Oh. Now I got it. He didn't want me to be shocked or disappointed by anything that our mom might have written in the journal.
"I'm not that shallow, Adam," I said. "I wouldn't think less of Mom if she wrote down something when she was feeling angry, or whatever."
"I wasn't tryin' to say that I think you're shallow, Harlie," he said.
"Okay," I said. And then, without really thinking it out, I asked, "Did you call Karissa to talk to her?"
Brian straightened to his full height from where he'd been digging new holes with the post-hole digger, and both he and Adam pinned their eyes on me.
"Why are you askin' me that?" Adam asked, sounding irritated.
"I just wondered," I said, vaguely. "You said to leave you the number-I was just curious."
"Right now that's not anything that you need to be concerned about. What does or doesn't happen with her from here on out is between her and Brian and I," Adam said, effectively putting an end to the conversation about Karissa.
I stared at him a moment, surprised by his vehement answer.
"In other words," Brian said, "it's not your business. Got it, peach?"
Wow. I could hardly take in how mean they were being. Bullies. Both of them. Well, maybe not bullies, exactly. Grouches for definite sure, though.
"Got it," I said, and went off to the truck, under the guise of getting a drink, and emptying dirt from my boots, but really, just to sit there and sulk. I would have kept sitting there, too, except for a high-pitched whistle, and when I looked in their direction, Brian was waving me back over to help.
I kept quiet the rest of the afternoon, doing whatever they told me to do, but determined to keep my mouth shut.
As we rattled back down the hills in the truck towards the house and barn, I was still silent. I was picking at my dirty fingernails, thinking that I needed a manicure. Lost in my own thoughts, I was surprised when Brian gave my leg a tap.
"What?" I asked, looking up at him.
"There," he said, pointing off to the west, outside of Adam's window. When I looked in that direction, I saw a fox, running across the grasses of the field. Running behind it was a baby fox.
For a moment I thought how much Doc G would have liked seeing that. It's not that common to see foxes in our area.
Then I remembered I was irritated with both of them. Brian, and Adam, too. So I only nodded, and went back to scraping at my fingernails.
At the barn, Evan greeted us with something about some of the hay being moldy. I didn't really pay close attention to exactly what he was saying. Adam ambled off with Evan and I climbed out of the truck after Brian. I was startled when he halted me with a grasp on the back of my jacket. While he kept his hand wrapped around a chunk of the material in the center of my back, I turned to look at him, questioningly.
"The pouting is ridiculous, don't you think?" he said.
"I'm not pouting," I denied, with dignity. I made an attempt to free myself from his hold, but all that did was cause him to tighten his grasp.
"I recognize pouting when I see it," he insisted.
"I was just being quiet. Keeping my mouth shut," I informed him.
"Yeah? I'm not sayin' that's a bad idea, mind you, but how come?" he asked.
I shrugged, and tried to pull out of his hold again, only to be pulled back.
"I'm not a yo-yo," I told him.
"Then stop tryin' to pull loose."
I gave up my resistance and stood still. "I'm just tired," I said, as an excuse. "And I think I need to eat something. I'm starting to get a headache."
It had been a long time since I'd used the 'diabetes' excuse to get out of something. It had always worked with Crane. And usually with Adam, too. Brian, however, just gave me a knowing look.
"Well, go on inside then, for sure," he said, "and get something to eat." He loosened his hold and just when I thought he'd let go, I was startled by a hard swat on the seat of my jeans.
It was so sudden that I squealed a little. "What's that for?" I asked, rubbing at the sting.
"Just practicing," he said, and I looked at him tremulously, not so certain that he was joking.
7
I spent the early part of the evening in my room, reading the first few pages of the journal.
" December 18, 1953
Today was the longest day ever. I couldn't concentrate in class at all. I only got a C- on my last biology exam.
Mom was sick again this morning. I wish she'd take better care of herself. Of course, Margie used it as an
excuse to take over, and start bossing Pop and I around.
The winter formal is this weekend. I think it will be fun. I just think that Bart feels we are "more than
friends". And I don't think of him that way. Not at all.
I wish I had the nerve to invite Adam to go with me. Of course, he wouldn't want to attend such
a juvenile thing as a high school winter formal. He's sooo handsome! I just need to convince him
that we need to be together. That I'm not too young for him.
Will write more later.
Kate"
7
What an insight to my mom as a 16 year old! She'd worried about her grades. And she'd called her dad 'Pop'. She'd resented it when Karissa, who I assumed was
'Margie', tried to boss her around. She'd wondered how to let a guy know that she didn't think of him as a boyfriend.
And most importantly, she'd known that she and my dad had belonged together.
So, my dad had thought he was too old for her, huh? Interesting.
For some reason, that made my thoughts stray to Eddie.
7
